


The Witch Hunter

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Witch Hunters, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: It’s the same old story, every time. Witch appears, idiots try to kill witch. Shit happens. God, Bucky’s tired of it.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 11
Kudos: 55
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	The Witch Hunter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerofthewolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerofthewolf/gifts).



> for Buckybarnesbingo  
> Square Y3: Identity Porn

Same old story, every time.

Bucky sometimes hoped something new would happen, but no.

Same old story.

A witch comes into power and either tried to hide it (in which case, when she inevitable slips up, the village would accuse her of witchcraft and sentence her to death) or she tried to help the villagers, her friends and family. And eventually, when something went wrong (as it would-- someone would die, or someone would ask for something the witch wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do) the villagers would accuse her of witchcraft and sentence her to death. 

People were stupid, Bucky decided.

Trying to put a witch to death was a dangerous proposition most of the time. More often than not, ended with dead villagers and burning houses than a dead witch. Didn’t seem to keep them from trying.

Bucky's job was a witch hunter -- those witches who had been accused, tried, found guilty, and who managed to get away… or who had been just one step ahead of the village elders.

Those were his prey.

The lost souls who were wandering, afraid and angry. 

He needed to catch them before they decided vengeance was the path to trod. An angry witch was even more dangerous than a woman scorned.

“Hell hath fury,” Bucky muttered. 

The village elder looked up at him. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Bucky said. “Tell me the whole sequence of events, from when the village started to suspect there was witchcraft at play.”

The story was the same old story; the girl came of age, and things were naturally just _better_ for her for a while. Unexplained streaks of good luck, fortuitous rains on dry crops, good hauls fishing, bushes loaded with berries. Lucky in love, or unexpected money.

Never too much, never really more than anyone needed.

But it was enough to stir petty jealousy. To give someone who already looked at the witch without favor ammunition. A lot of times, Bucky thought, it came to nothing except tragedy. The girl wasn’t really a witch, and she’d either scorned the wrong suitor or pissed off the wrong bitch. The whole thing ended with a farce of a trial, and a dead woman who’d never done anything except exist.

It was always a woman.

“Did she hurt anyone?”

Yes, of course she had. Sickness came to the village. A farmer’s cow had died. Eggs that wouldn’t hatch.

“Did you save any of these unhatched eggs?” Okay, well, that was new. And Bucky didn’t believe the girl was responsible for the cow, or the sickness. They usually weren’t. Tragedy happened, illnesses happened. No witch needed to be involved. But eggs that didn’t hatch. That was something new.

The elder took him to the coop. All the chickens had been removed, but the place still smelled of dusty feathers and chicken shit. 

Three nests of eggs, neatly stacked in piles. Fully large enough to hatch.

Dead chicks, that was one thing, but this was different. Bucky counted. Nine eggs in each nest.

Three. Times three. Times three again.

That was… unusual.

“Do you mind?” Bucky picked one of the eggs up. It was heavier than a chicken egg should be, and somehow still warm, even though no chicken had been sitting on it in a while. He knocked the egg sharply against the wooden ledge, cracking the shell.

What dropped out of the egg wasn’t a yolk and white.

It wasn’t a chicken, either.

Or it might have been, at one point. But now it was some monstrous, unborn thing with three heads and scales instead of feathers.

“Woah, yikes, that’s--” Bucky crushed it under the heel of his boot. “If you can spare a messenger, I’d like to send these eggs to the Witch Hunter General. Pack them each separately in a leather bag, with a wafer from the sacrament inside with it. Seal the ties with lead. And for God’s sake, don’t break them on the way.”

“You think the girl is, in fact, a witch?”

That was also new. Usually, by the time Bucky was involved, everyone was beyond sure.

“She’s something, all right,” Bucky said. “I’m going to repeat my question from earlier. Did anyone -- any _human_? Die?” Bucky wasn’t sure what the demon chicks meant, but he also wasn’t sure they had died. That was a question for the philosophers, what came first the demon chickens or the eggs?

“No, thank God,” and Bucky made the sign of the cross as well. Thank God. 

There were some lines too dangerous to cross.

“What will happen to her, when you find her?”

“We’ll take care of the problem,” Bucky promised.

“Thank God.” 

The village elder handed over the tithe, all the Church and the village could afford. Probably most of it was the result of the worldly goods that belonged to the girl before these fools tried to arrest her. Seemed appropriate somehow.

“Does she have any living relatives, someone I could speak with?”

“No,” the elder said. “Her parents died about eight years ago in a fire, and the twin brother--”

“What happened?”

“He was shot in the attempt to apprehend the witch. He died almost instantly, poor deluded fool.”

Oh, Christ.

“You idiots killed a witch’s twin brother?” He was half a mind to leave them to their fate. “Never mind.”

“God go with you, my son.”

“Yeah, God stay here and watch over you,” Bucky said. _Idiots._

* * *

Wanda practically threw herself on the ground. She was exhausted, filthy. Hungry. And she was going to be hungrier, she thought, not having had time before dark to do anything like hunt or fish, or even gather berries, although there had been a bush that burst into fruit right beside her around lunch and she’d stuffed her mouth greedily, before she heard the baying of hounds.

The church’s men, she thought, and bolted off.

Now, it was dark and she was cold.

Fire. She could at least make a fire. Probably.

A fire would keep animals away. And no one, not even the Church, would hunt a witch at night. Wanda’s hands were shaking as she moved her fingers, summoning pieces of dried wood, bits of moss for tinder, gathering them out of the woods with a thought.

She gestured, stacked them neatly in the center of the small clearing. Another twist of her fingers and the ground was scraped clear around the fire. That was enough for responsible fire-tending. Even if she wanted to see the village burn, she didn’t want to set fire to the forest. The animals had done nothing to her. The children had done nothing to her.

God, the children.

She released one last burst of power, lighting the flame.

Pietro, her brother, had died, an arrow right between his eyes. 

Everything had been a madhouse; villagers that she’d known her whole life screaming her name, their faces distorted by rage and fear.

Calling for her death, calling her witch and whore of Satan.

Saying she’d brought disease, that she’d cursed the land and the crops and the cattle.

She hadn’t done any of those things. 

But she just might.

“Nice fire,” someone said. A shadow separated themselves from the darkness of the wood. “Pretty much tells anyone human in the area that there’s another human around.”

Wanda tensed, drawing strength from the earth and the trees--

“Eh, you don’t want to do that,” the man said. “Once you cross that line, you can’t come back. You hungry? I have a couple of pheasants, and you have this nice fire. We could share.”

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“My name’s Bucky, nice to meet you,” he said. “And what I want… is to cook these pheasants.”

“And after that?”

“Well, we’re probably eat them,” Bucky said, sitting down uninvited in her clearing and setting up a spit over the fire. “I might offer you some wine. You might tell me if you have any plans. And then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do instead.”

“Who are you?”

“Bucky Barnes. Witch Hunter, point of fact--” he held up one hand. “Ah, don’t do that. I’m still faster than you are, and I really, really don’t want to kill you.”

“I thought that’s what Witch Hunters did.”

“Only if we have to,” Bucky said. He spitted the birds, stuffed their cavities with a mix of herbs and grains. “Only if you kill someone first. You’re a witch. Simple fact. Another simple fact -- humans don’t much like witches. Because they can’t control them. It’s as simple as it is. They will grind you underfoot if you try. You don’t belong with them.”

Wanda didn’t quite sneer. “Let me guess,” she said. “I belong with you. You’ll protect me?”

Bucky laughed. “Lady, anything that’s an actual danger to you would make stew meat you of me. I’m here to help you. To get you home. And to make sure you don’t kill anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because once you kill someone with your powers, I can’t help you anymore,” Bucky said. “So if someone needs to die, you step back and let me do it. You can’t risk your soul by becoming a murderer.”

“But you can?”

“That’s the interesting bit,” Bucky said, and he took off his glove, showing off a silver, shiny hand. “I don’t have one anymore. I already sold it. So I suppose the only question left -- Are you going to have dinner with me, or are you going to go back there and burn that place to the ground?”

“They took everything from me,” Wanda burst.

“No, not yet,” Bucky said. “So don’t give it to them. Make the better choice, Wanda. Come with me.”

She wasn’t quite sure when she’d reached out her hand, or if she’d meant to take his, or to strangle him.

But she started to cry, and he gathered her into his arms, even the strange silver one felt warm and comforting around her back. “I know,” Bucky said. “There’s always a cost-- and you shouldn’t have to pay it. I’m sorry. Killing them won’t bring him back. It will only hurt you, and then there will be no one who remembers him.”

“You’re going to take me somewhere safe?”

“I promise,” Bucky said.

“Okay.”

“Dinner first? I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“Dinner first.”


End file.
